De Dana Dan: Will Entertain the Masses

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De Dana Dan brings back the quartet of Hera Pheri – Priyadarshan, Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty and Paresh Rawal, but unlike Hera pheri, which had a nice script backed up by some excellent situational comedy, this movie is purely a slapstick comedy, which is not only loud but a no-brainer as well.

In order to pay back the education loan that his father took for his studies, Nitin Bankar (Akshay Kumar) works for Kuljeet Kaur (Archana Puran Singh), who is a rich industrialist in Singapore. Ram Mishra (Sunil Shetty), who came to Sungapore with dreams of getting rich is Nitin’s friend and works as a courier boy. Both Nitin and Ram have rich girlfriends Anjali Kakkad (Katrina Kaif) and Manpreet Oberoi (Sameera Reddy), who warn them to earn quick money or loose the girls.

Harbans Chaddha (Paresh rawal) is a bankrupt business man with a young wife Pammi Chaddha (Aditi Govitrikar), who is double-crossing him. Inspector Wilson Parera (Sharad Saxena), from Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, is inestigating Chaddha’s case. In order to save himself from Parera, Chaddha decides to marry his son Nonny Chaddha (Chunky Pandey) to the daughter of Industrialist Brij Mohan Oberoi (Manoj Joshi) for a huge dowry.

Nitin and Ram kidnap Kuljeet’s dog – Moolchand ji but the dog outsmarts them and returns back. It Appears to Kuljeet Kaur and Police that Nitin has been kidnapped for a ransom of Rs 1 Crore, meanwhile Nitin, unaware about Moolchandji’s escape, hopes to earn quick money and asks Anjali to elope and meet him at a hotel. The marriage of the Chaddhas and the Oberois is also scheduled in the same hotel. Here, sub-plots introduce a horde of other characters – Contract killer Kala (Johny lever), Underworld Don Maamu (Asrani), Club Dancer Anu (Neha dhupia), a drunkard waiter Dagdu (Rajpal Yadav), and lecherous Moosa Heerapur wala (Shakti Kapoor).

With so many characters in the hotel what follows is mayhem and confusion, typical priyadarshan-style mistaken identities, and people running after one another. The climax is well shot where a bomb explodes in the water tank of hotel and it gets flooded. The characters, this time float behind each other, unlike Priyadarshan’s previous movies.

The climax has some good humor moments of the movie, especially during the flooded hotel. Akshay Kumar and Johny Lever deliver good comic performances, while the others do well to make the audience laugh. Cinematography is good and art director has done a good job as well.Priyadarshan deserves applause for pulling this one off with 26 artists and many subplots. Second half of the movie is very entertaining

As is the case with almost all Bollywood comedies, the film has an almost zero story. There are too many characters and some of them have nothing to do. The first half isn’t very entertaining. The climax, though well shot, is a bit stretched. Songs keep coming in between, hindering the pace of the movie. Music by Pritam is average. Paisa Paisa is the only blockbuster song for the movie.

Although, Akshay Kumar has done his part quite well, he is getting repetitive with similar comic performaces. He needs to reinvent himself and come up with variety in his movies as well roles. Same holds good for Priyadarshan, who is also making same type of movies with mistaken identities and people running after each other in climazes.

This movie is not for people looking for intelligent cinema or classes. This a typical Priyadarshan slapstick, where Priyadarshan serves the same masala as he did in his earlier movies in a new way. But the movie is fairly entertaining, especially the second half, and would be loved by the masses.